A Sad Sign of the Times

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Spent a little time on the Outer Banks of North Carolina the last couple of days.In the spirit of the Administration’s “summer of recovery”  I did my small part at stimulating the economy. While driving around I saw a sign that encapsulated the ongoing economic problems that we face. The sign was  located at a real estate office, a Century 21 branch  I believe. Typically these advertise featured homes or land that are for sale. This particular sign said ” Bank owned homes tour.”

My interpretation of that based on homes tours with which I  am familiar presumes that this office has enough foreclosed homes available to comprise a tour all their own. Very sad thing to contemplate. Unfortunately, it goes along with  a  USA Today article yesterday captioned ” Nothing but awful economic news.”  I read another article , actually from two sources that reported foreclosure filings  in July topped 300,000 for the 17th consecutive month. ( Actual forclosures are running a little over 85,000 a month.)

Alas, the recovery seems to an elusive thing indeed. But, on  a ( maybe) brighter note, the Department of Energy has a new category to chart the success of the economic stimulus. Along with the millions of jobs created or saved they will publish a  new number, “lives touched, ” presumably by the economic stimulus. So, hang in there, you  may yet fit into a category.